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Staff development and involvement at the National Institute for Agrarian and Veterinary Research

Received Golden Case recognition at the CAF Users Event 2025 in Warsaw

CAF Best Practice
Date of publication: September 2025

Executive summary

In the end of 2018, we saw the opportunity to implement CAF model through financing under the Support System for the Modernization and Training of Public Administration (SAMA2020), of the Portugal 2020 Program.

Given the complexity of INIAV’s assignments, it was decided to apply CAF in phases. The first phase was only said to consider the support areas. The methodology to be adopted was based on the PDCA model (Plan, Do, Check and Adjust) and in the guidelines defined by the CAF Model, the process took place between 2019 and 2021 by the CAF work group and the leaders of the institution. Information sessions were held for those involved and training.

About the organisation

INIAV is a Research Institute, with State Laboratory status, which, within the scope of its mission and attributions, develops activities in the areas of animal and plant production, environment and natural resources, forestry, agro-industries, genetic resources and improvement, food and animal health and, also in food safety, in line with public policies defined for the respective sectors, with at the moment 554 employees, with 7 poles, 5 strategic Investigation units deconcentrated around the country.

Stakeholders and communication

To seek for the success of CAF implementation model started to involve middle and senior managers and later through communication by e-mail and dissemination on the intranet.

The focal point was designated in each organic unit for the development of the self- assessment and contributions were requested from key collaborators of the different processes under evaluation.

Implementation process/approach

The scoring system used in this CAF implementation process, for the means and results criteria, was the classic one because it is simple to use in a first application of CAF model. The self-assessment team included members from different support areas with distinct technical skills and a deep and integrated vision of the Institute. Document analysis was carried out, satisfaction questionnaires were administered and interviews were conducted with those responsible for the processes.

After having the main areas that needs intervention, we listed and scored it, that way we were able to know the areas that needs a rapid intervention. Afterward, we were able to began to implement some of the rapid implementation improvement actions (Quikwins) listed, as well as the actions that was a priority.

So, through the assessment tools used throughout the different management cycles, the need to improve internal communication was perceived. Through the CAF self- assessment, we confirmed the need to invest in internal communication and in strengthening the organizational culture if we want to increase performance and employee involvement. It became aware of the identification of anomalies in the organizational culture and communicative processes during the self-assessment process of CAF application revealed the need to develop: collaborative practices, agile communication, leadership processes.

Subsequently the self-evaluation was able to understand the main points to improve. We intend that all employees identify with a unique culture and the same processes, improve the communicational interaction of different units and improve the leadership practices, contributing to the good performance of the institution. So, the strategic objectives were: Obj. 1 – Clarify responsibilities and roles (Clarify); Obj. 2 – Redesign communication processes and mechanisms (Simplify); Obj. 3 – Reinforce the spirit of the INIAV Tribe (Align and Pride); Obj. 4 – Create a common collaborative culture (Empower and Integrate); Obj. 5 – Fit the plan into the management system (Articular).

As part of its development strategy, it was decided to invest effort improving internal communication: beginning with the elaboration and implementation of an Internal Communication Plan; involve and commit the internal stakeholders in the elaboration and implementation of the communication plan.

The main lines of action to begin this implementation involve and commit the internal stakeholders was triggered by a diagnosis, consisting of 3 phases:

  1. Initial participative diagnosis
  2.  Deepening the analysis/diagnosis of internal communication
  3. Deepening the diagnosis

The Internal Communication Plan defines priorities and structures its intervention into 2 major axes of an integrated process organizational development:

  1. srt axe program – Development of the cultural organization:
    • INIAV Day
    • Teambuilding events (harvesting grapes, apples and figs in different poles to get to know the pole activities and colleagues,
    • WebINIAV internal seminars, to know colleagues, technical and investigation activities and projects in each unit),
    • Artistic creation contests, to promote teambuilder activities and interaction between teams, INIAV Academy of development and innovation, to develop communication leader skills. (it is expected to advance in 2025).
  1. nd axe program – Increment and participate, improvement of communication flows: (began in 2025)
    • Reflection and analysis of communication blocks and difficulties,
    • Work around of the flow questionnaire,
    • Improve “Document Management”.

Because it was the first time that we would implement this model and we didn´t have all the resources we need, we started the implementation by phases. So, we decided to start by the 1st axe and after that we started to monitored the impact of implementation as well as if these impacts our needs.

The essence of the innovation and the transferability of the solutions introduced

The implementation of CAF model brought new challenges and procedures, it open ways to started to use the PDCA model, monitoring all activities resulting from the project and the internal communication plan.

If you intent to start a self-assessment and improvement actions to have an impact on the organization, it is necessary to have:

  • Leaders and workers involved,
  • Use the PDCA cycle in the process,
  • Use monitoring tools to adjust the strategy and facilitate the decision,
  • Prepare the monitoring tools to respond to the next self-assessment,
  • Flexibility in action – to adjust when is necessary,
  • Have a strategy to communicate the

Success Measurement. Main results with regards to the focus area

During monitoring it was possible to measure the following results:

  • Regarding the activities promoted 100% of the participants respondents consider that these activities help foster deeper Knowledge about the activities in the poles and Units and their teams. 77.8% of the participants respondents consider these activities important to improve the motivation level and interest of the 77.8% rate the activities as very important and 22.2% as important.
  • When asked if they consider that these activities have the potential to aggregate and reinforce the institution’s organizational culture, 100% of the participants respondents answer yes. And Why? They referred that: it as an opportunity to learn more about the activity of each center as well as their colleagues, help to understand better the INIAV mission and assignments, enables the dissemination of inter-knowledge, better understand the contribution and role each one have in the institution, because creating shared values that provide opportunities for participation and being able to experience them is an excellent basis for a good corporate culture; encourage a good environment and bring better results to the organization, because it promote communication and empathy between colleagues; these activities are therefore very important, as they involve challenges that require everyone’s collaboration to be successfully overcome and everyone feels motivated to achieve common goals.
  • Help foster deeper Knowledge about the activities in the poles and Units and their teams employees: To the monitoring of internal seminars were assessed through a questionnaire. In reference to the usefulness of keeping this event internally, 98.1% of employees responded yes, and only 1.9% responded no, believing that opening up should be considered of these events externally. Regarding how they classify the WebINIAV event overall, 51.9% of collaborators considered it very interesting, 37% found it interesting and 11.1% acceptable.
  • Improve internal communication: In the annual satisfaction questionnaire sent to employees in 2024, they rated (scale from 0-5) the level of importance of actions to improve the internal communication plan as 1, (4.2 – 2023; 4.1 – 2022; 3.8 – 2021). Regarding the Level of Importance of the improvement actions developed within the scope of the Working Group of the Internal Communication Plan 2021-2023, the responding employees mentioned that the dynamization of activities at the hubs had an importance level of 3.9 in 2024, 4 in 2023, 3.9 in 2022 and 2021. In 2024 considered the Dynamization of internal seminars 4.1 – very important, 4.2 – 2023, 4.1 – 2022 and 4.2 – 2023. Also, in 2024, 2023, 2022 e 2021 considered the preparation of the implementation of Document Management 4.3 – Very important. In 2024, they consider the development of annual breeding competitions 3.2, important and 3.3 in the previous 3 years under analysis.

Lessons learnt

The first self-assessment allowed us to learn the following lessons:

  • Leaders must be committed to the project and must have time to dedicate to it;
  • The team working on the project must be motivated and committed;
  • Be resilient, as it is a process that affects the entire organization and is not always a process recognized and appreciated by everyone.
  • The impact of the action takes time to achieve, to take place and give results, so be patient and don’t give up.

Read the
complete study

About the author(s)

Patrícia Inácio & Carla Brito
National Institute for Agrarian and Veterinary Research
Portugal

Other best practices

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Portugal
Written by: Patrícia Inácio & Carla Brito
of National Institute for Agrarian and Veterinary Research

Read also:

CAFficiency (www.cafficiency.suk.gov.rs)

Received Golden Case recognition at the CAF Users Event 2025 in Warsaw
September 2025 -
The Human Resources Management Service (Government of the Republic of Serbia)
, Serbia